Tributo a Saddam

[shambler1]

Saddam: a tribute
David Cox

November 6, 2006 03:00 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/...a_tribute.html

Three months ago, Tony Blair warned the world that an "arc of extremism" now stretches across the Middle East from Iran to Lebanon. This phenomenon, he suggested, threatens the survival of the very values on which western society is based. Yet, when Blair came to power, no such claim could have been made. Slap-bang in the middle of his currently awesome arc, lay a fortress of stability in the shape of Saddam's Iraq.

Saddam had tied down revolutionary Iran, the most potentially destructive force in the region, in an eight-year war, at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties. Any Islamic terrorists found on Iraqi territory were summarily executed. The Middle Eastern oil that underpins our society, and therefore the values that our Prime Minister holds so dear, flowed freely into our refineries. Within Iraq itself, a secular state offered women opportunities unimaginable in nearby countries, and provided a standard of living far from unreasonable by the standards of the developing world.

Three objections were made to this state of affairs.

The first was that Saddam had expansionist ambitions. His annexation of Kuwait in 1990 was, however, rooted in a long-standing territorial claim based on the fact that Kuwait had been part of Basra province under the Ottomans and was only hived off under British colonial rule. Somewhat disconcertingly for Iraq's current liberators, this claim was revived in 2004 by none other than the US-appointed President of Iraq's Interim Governing Council.

The second objection was that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction. Why he stopped doing so, we shall perhaps never know, but when he had such weapons, he chose to use them against Iranian armed forces and Iraq's own dissident Kurds, rather than for any purpose that threatened the wider world. Had he acquired nuclear weapons, this might have proved a useful check on Iran's regional ambitions. Today, Iran appears to pose far more danger to the outside world than Saddam ever did, yet we seem to have no plans to deal with this country as we did with Iraq.

The final objection to Saddam's rule, on which more and more weight has necessarily had to be placed by those responsible for his downfall, is that he abused the human rights of Iraqi citizens. Quite clearly he did. Yet, why should it be assumed that this consideration trumps all others?

Iraq was created by the victors of World War I. Its Shia, Sunni and Kurdish peoples did not choose to be flung together, and their antagonisms made the country a powder-keg. Saddam believed that such a nation could be held together only by brutally effective repression. Current events suggest that he may have had a point.

Doubtless, Saddam's security services killed many Iraqis. However, the 2003 invasion appears to have resulted in at least 45,000 violent civilian deaths. Back in 2004, before things had reached their present parlous state, a study published by The Lancet suggested that the risk of death for a civilian in Iraq had already become 58 times higher than it was under Saddam. Taking into account invasion-caused mortality from accidents, heart attacks, disease and so on, it was estimated that Iraq had already experienced at least 100,000 additional deaths as early as September 2004.

Saddam would have had his work cut out to match these figures. So, why are the Iraqis better off without him? The only answer available is that now they are "free". Well, we all value freedom. Some value it more than life, and those who do certainly go on about it. Nonetheless, they are probably a minority.

Living under tyranny may not be ideal, but it is not impossible. In the Soviet Union, life took on a character of its own, in which the human spirit managed to flourish in spite of the political constraints. The literature generated in those conditions can still inspire us. Today, many former Soviet citizens feel no more free under the yoke of global capitalism than they did before, and some would like to see the return of Stalinism. The people of China seem in no rush to jettison a regime that holds out the prospect of prosperity at the expense only of liberty.

Even in Britain, our supposed attachment to our supposed freedom turns out to be tenuous. We seem content to toss aside ancient liberties in the face of a dubious war on terror, and we live, cheerily enough, under a regime of surveillance that the KGB might have envied.

Saddam offered his people a harsh deal. Yet, their lives were at risk only if they chose to challenge his authority. Now, they die because of the sect to which they happen to belong. Soon, their country may fall prey to a savage civil war. If that happens, the Iranians will doubtless intervene, along, perhaps, with Turkey and Israel. No one can predict where that might lead, but the outcome is unlikely to be positive for peace, prosperity, justice or, indeed, human rights.

If Saddam were still in power, he would have stopped this happening. Iraq's dissidents would have paid a price, but the rest of us would be a lot better off. As he goes to meet the hangman, the world has cause to rue his demise.